British punk legend Billy Idol is all set to play his first ever gig in Moscow's SCCH arena on Saturday.
"Rehearsals are done. Band is ready to rock.....next stop, Moscow!!!" Idol said on his Twitter blog last week.
Event organizers said the gig was part of a world tour, which also includes the Ice Hall arena in St. Petersburg.
"It is his first concert in Moscow. He is currently on a world tour so it would be odd for him not to play in Russia," the organizers said.
Billy Idol (born William Michael Albert Broad) achieved fame as the hell-raiser lead singer of 1970's Punk band Generation X, before embarking on a successful solo career. The rocker's stage name was inspired by a school teacher, who described him as "idle".
"I definitely took punk with me wherever I've gone," Idol said on his official web-site. "That was the whole idea really. I wanted to transform my music, but I didn't want to ever lose sight of that punk rock attitude".
Along with displays of rebellion at his gigs, Idol was notorious in the 1970s for holding outlandish parties with the other major punk groups of the era: the Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Clash.
In 1990 Idol was severely injured in a motorcycle accident in California. He was hit by a car on his way home from his recording studio.
Shortly before the accident, Hollywood director James Cameron offered Idol a part as T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
It took Idol three years to recover from the accident. In 1993 he released the unsuccessful album Cyberpunk. Idol's fans later said the record's experimental electro sound was ahead of its time.
Despite several drug overdoses and serious health issues, the 55-year-old "rebel" is still touring the world, and his philosophy: "rock isn't art, it's the way ordinary people talk," lives on.
MOSCOW, June 2 (RIA Novosti)
